Let's Give Thanks!

Another fun Thanksgiving has come and gone in the Growing Giraffe room!  We had fun reading different stories, doing activities and had a blast creating our Indian vests and headdresses!  Our feast was pretty awesome also!

For some funny art, we made turkey drumsticks!  The kids tore brown paper and covered the turkey with it then we added shiny iridescent glitter for the stick/bone part.  The had fun and they make funny art projects!

I make this turkey every year...the kids make the feathers out of bell peppers dipped in paint.  I cut the bell peppers in half and the kids use one half for each color.  They make the feathers first and then we glue the body and the rest of turkey parts on!

We make special place mats every year for our Thanksgiving Feast!  I always end up doing the same thing but I love these handprints so much!  Then the children add a mosaic touch to them with the square border.  Sorry, the picture is just awful!  I thought I took a better one but I guess it was not focused well.

To work on motor skills and let the kids have some very cool fun, I had a bag of small feathers and each child got play-doh and had a blast sticking the feathers in their play-doh just like on a turkey!  

Here is a glance of our Indian vest we made and our necklaces...

And lastly, another shot of me and my sweet girl at our Feast...

Falling Into Fun

Fall is here but not for too much longer!  Again, sorry for the delay!  Enjoy some of the Fall activities we did in our classroom!

Here is our Fall classroom door... the kids made pumpkins by painting bubble wrap with green and orange and then we twisted up some green paper for vines.  We are asked to use a "Biblical" saying on our door since we are in a church so what better to go with a Pumpkin Patch than, "Hand Picked by God!"

We let the kids make a fun Fall tree using triangles in colors of brown, yellow, red, green and orange.  The kids glued them all on to create their own special trees!

Of course, Halloween also was a fun part of Fall... here is one of my favorite crafts we did!  We made handprint candy corns and I found the best poem to go with it that had a Biblical theme!

And just for fun... here are two more pics - the first is of the fun treats I made for my own class, my daughter's class and my son's class.  It is a Halloween Play-Doh Kit!  They all loved it!  Then the last is myself, my aide and our suitemates next door in the Alligator room.  We wanted to do something out of the box for our school costume... so we were the "Spice Girls!"

Fire Safety Time

Yes, I know I am behind!  But times are crazy around here!  Trying to keep up with not only this blog but the life with two very active kids!  

So, here is a taste of what we did for Fire Safety Fun!  We did a few fun activities and got a fun visit from the local fire station and Sparky, the Fire Dog!  

One of my favorites that we do is definitely the Five Little Firemen Handprint!  I love doing this and save it every year for our art show.  Not only did we do this craft with the kids but we also made the Firemen a Thank You card with my handprint made into the Five Little Firemen!

We taught the kids all about the what number you dial in case of an emergency... 9-1-1!  The children got to hands on with this activity by using a red stamp pad and make thumbprints all over the 9-1-1 worksheet!

Then to add a little math/number lesson into our weekly theme... we practiced gluing our number line on to a fire hose.  The children did such a good job!

Here a few pics of our fun with the firemen & Sparky...

And last one... this is of me and my sweet little girl, Sullivan, who is in the Middle 3's class at our school:

Alphabet Posters... Again

Okay, e-mails go out tonight with the files!  I am just not with it on this to put it on here.  How, I do not know since I am super computer literate but I will be e-mialing them tonight!  Thanks!

Okay... here I go again!

I am so excited!  I just spent some time googling and found out how I can post it on my page.  I am super computer literate but on things like this, I have my problems!  So, now I may try to finish all the mess ups tomorrow night and post it all at once for you on here!

Alphabet Posters... Letters A-F

Hey Everyone!  Whew... I just got a new laptop last week so and nothing has transferred over so I am trying to get all the alphabet posters back in action for you!  I have perfected letters A-F right now and will happily send the links to anyone who wants them!  I may try to post the link on here if possible!  I am not sure I am quite that with it right now but I will try.  If a link does not work, I will e-mail everyone!  Thanks for your patience and I will get back to work on fixing the remainder of the alphabet!

Update:  Okay, you will all be getting e-mailed!  They are done through Microsoft.  I normally cut out each clip art and wording and use half sheets of poster board to make my posters.  I just glue or tape them on and then laminate.  

I Promise...

I promise I will get around to sharing my Alphabet Posters!!!!  My life is a hectic mess lately between teaching preschool, running a crazy business, having two kids, being on the PTO and Youth Baseball Boards, havving one child in baseball and another in dance and gymnastics!  But, as soon as our elementary school's Fall Festival is over, I will get it all together and send to anyone who wants it!  If you are interested, comment here with your e-mail and I will send a mass e-nail out in a few weeks!  

I am also in the middle of making Color Song posters.  We teach our kids the color songs from Frog Street Press and I have been making the cutest posters we used during circle time!  They are at school but I will take pictures next week and share!

Five Senses Fun

We had a fun week talking all about our Five Senses and the Human Body.  We sang songs, we read poems, we played games and helped the children learn all about how to smell, taste, touch, hear and see!  The kids had some fun (and some not so much fun) smelling different things!  Between all the spices and other smells, the kids definitely learned what they liked and did not like.  We also had fun listening to a CD of many different everyday sounds and letting the kids figure out what they all were.

The kids also learned all about their bodies and their bones.  We had fun talking about and feeling the bones in our hands and faces.  The kids loved getting to go home and tell their parents how many bones are in our bodies!  We did many fun crafts for this week!

 We made our 5 Senses Bear using jingle bells in the ears, wiggly eyes, cotton for the nose, sandpaper on the hands and real bubblegum on the mouth.

This is what the kids did for the human body.  We cut out the parts and they glued together their bodies.  The template was originally a game but we decided to make a craft instead.  You can find it here: http://www.activityvillage.co.uk/skeleton_game.htm

We make a spice hand every year and some enjoy the smells and some don't!  Each finger has a different spice glued on... Cinnamon, Garlic Powder, Cumin, Oregano and Basil.

And this is just a random one we did involving one of our letters for the month.  O is for Oatmeal.  

Fun Times With New Friends

We are back and we are having tons of fun!  We are taking things slowly and learning all about each other.  We went into learning all about our monthly themes, letters, color, shape and number.  This month, we are learning:

All About Me                               Letters: A, B, E

                  Friends & Family                               Color: Red

                 Fall & Scarecrows                            Shape: Square

          Apples & Johnny Appleseed                        Number: 1

We kicked off the year reading many books and doing activities with them such as The Kissing Hand, Elmer, If You Take a Mouse to School, Chicka Chicka Boom Boom and The Crayon Box That Talked.  The kids had so much fun listening to all of them and doing fun crafts and activities also.  

Our Elmer Craft we did:

The kids love our stuffed Elmer:

The Kissing Hand Puzzles we made our parents:

Our Chicka Chicka Boom Boom Handprint Trees:

We jumped into Friends and Family learning all about our new classmates and talking about who is in our family.  We had fun with activities and songs all about these themes.  We also began doing a few activities about our letters and a keepsake for our parents!  

Our Family Glyph:

Our Friendship Flowers:

We also did a few activities for fun involving all about ourselves, colors, alphabet and our first day!

A is for Apple Jacks

Our First Day Handprints

Look At Me Glyphs

I hope you all enjoy our fun crafts and activities we do in our Giraffe Class!  As we finish up the month of September with Fall and Apples, we will be sharing much more with you!

I'll Have a Side of Fries with My Alphabet

Oh what fun and creative ways you can find to help your class learn these days!  Of course, I yet again saw this idea and recreated it for myself.  I did not have an unused red french fry container so I used laminated red paper and constructed my own!  I laminated yellow paper with all 26 letters of the alphabet on it and used zig zag scissors to make crinkle fries.  I typed up the song I found and laminated it as well so it will last during our circle time.  

The idea is so cute to sing the song to each child, have them pick a fry and tell you the letter and the sound it makes!  I can't wait to try it but we will wait for this until later in the year!  

First Day of School!

Well, we are back at school!  The first day is always crazy but it went well!  A few tears were shed but that is understandable.  A few more days to get in the swing of things and then, we are headed to stick to our schedule and lessons!  I am the Queen of giving my sweet class as well as my personal children's classes goodies throughout the year.  This year, my big boy hit the big time and is in Kindergarten so it is just me and my sweet girl at our school.  We wanted to do something fun and yummy!  I found this idea and tweaked it to make it my own!  

We made a S'Mores Trail Mix... chocolate chips, mini marshmallows and mini square graham crackers.  It was so yummy and the kids loved it!

Back to School

 Okay... I have been such a slacker on keeping this up but made a promise to myself that would update each weekend this school year!  I want to be able to share all the wonderful ideas and crafts we do in my class this year.  I moved classrooms this year so now I am a Growing Giraffe and I had to think of all new classroom ideas!  I decided this year to make my own calendar headers and numbers with colorful giraffe paper I had.  I also used the paper for my kids name plates, backpack hangers, behavior chart and much more!  I teach at a church so they ask that our classroom doors be fun and cute yet combine a biblical sense to them.  What can you do with giraffes?!?!?  I quickly decided over the Summer... "Come on in... God has a spot for you!"  My door has a big giraffe on it covered in spots with each child's name on them.  Makes perfect sense!  We start back this Wednesday and I can't wait to share our fun year with you!  For now... here are a few pictures of my classroom!